Posted by Steve Price on December 08, 1998 at 14:33:37:
In Reply to: Re: Clarification, please posted by James Allen on December 08, 1998 at 12:05:47:
Dear Jim,
Whenever something - anything - changes, something goes away and something else appears. If I buy a new pair of shoes, I sacrifice some money and throw away an old pair of shoes, and I acquire a new pair. Usually, there are things I really like about my old shoes and it's hard not to like money, but I make the exchange because I think that on balance I'll be enriched, not impoverished, by doing so. Since I've performed this little operation many times, either the results tended to fulfill my expectations or I'm even more of a fool than some people think I am.
That's kind of a microcosmic view of cultural changes, too. When Grandpa Price came to the USA in 1925 (he brought his family; my father was 12 at the time), he gave up all the good and bad things of the life he had, and replaced them with the good and bad of the culture of the USA. I never heard him or my grandmother or my father express even a hint of desire to return to the old country (Russia). On balance, they thought they got a pretty good outcome. It's worth noting, I think, that throughout the 20th century our western cultures have had immigration laws to limit the number of foreignors who entered. The USSR (of which Turkmenistan was part) had walls to prevent their people from leaving. I think this says a lot more about who was impoverished and who was enriched than all the theorizing about the glorious freedom of nomadic existence. In fact, one of the reasons Grandpa Price came here was so he wouldn't have to endure the carefree, fun-loving horsemen known as Cossacks, whose culture included the Joy of the Pogrom.
'Nuf said, I think.
Steve Price